The process of bringing a building from concept to plan involves many different parties. For example, a new medical center may require management to conceive of building a medical center, doctors to enumerate features needed by various rooms in the medical center, architects to draw up an ideal example room plan for each of the various rooms based on the enumerated needed features, and then additional architects to adapt the ideal example room plans multiple times due to the space available at specific locations on various floors of a building.
In order to hasten the process, deviations from the ideal example room plans (i.e., adaptations) are sometimes unilaterally made by a single party without consultation from the other parties, which can result in conflict if the other parties object to the decision. For example, the architect adapting the ideal example room plan to the shape of the building may unilaterally decide to modify a room to accommodate a column, window, or an otherwise limited space. However, upon review, the doctors and/or management may object to the modification of the room because the modification has rendered the room unusable. If the modification is reviewed prior to building, the architect may only need to spend additional time making modifications to the adaptation but, if the modification is not reviewed until after construction is substantially complete, expensive repairs may be necessary.
Alternatively, if parties in the process are required to seek approval from all other parties for each decision or modification on a room-by-room basis, the process can become inefficient and delay the concept-to-plan process. For example, if an architect needs to consult the doctors and management before making modifications to the ideal example room plan using traditional techniques, the building plan could be delayed for days at a time if the various other parties are unavailable.